Sideshow Bob's Cavalcade of Whimsy
by Drucilla Black
Summary: Robert Terwilliger aka Sideshow Bob reflects on what he felt to be his one shining moment and whether things are always as black and white as the children saw them to be. Set after Krusty Gets Busted.


**Sideshow Bob's Cavalcade of Whimsy**

_**Robert Terwilliger aka Sideshow Bob reflects on what he felt to be his one shining moment and whether things are always as black and white as the children saw them to be. Set after "Krusty Gets Busted".**_

I don't belong here.

I know that the guards and other prisoners have heard that line uttered many-a-time before, but I honestly believe that I don't belong here. So much foul language, unnecessary violence and such an obvious lack of even the simplest education amongst the men I am forced to call my "fellow prisoners". I'm a Yale-educated man, a rarity amongst this city as the mayor himself _barely_ even graduated from Springfield U. So many things I could have been...I could have been the curator of one - or even all - of Springfield's many museums, I could have been a Professor or even The Dean at a prestigious University, I could have gone into politics and restored the good old-fashioned Republican Values our country was built on. But Fate had other plans for me, plans that involved being in front of a camera as the silent foil of famous children's entertainer, Krusty The Clown. Not my dream job, but it helped me to realise my fondness for entertaining the children although the position was also a stifling one as Krusty refused to ever try any new material.

Oh! Excuse me, I was getting a little carried away there. Now, I was presenting my argument as to why I don't belong in prison.

Are you familiar with "Doing the wrong thing for the right reason"? Well, because I decided to do the wrong thing for the right reasons, I ended up here, in this urine-soaked hell-hole. I certainly don't deny the enormity of my acts. I framed Krusty for armed robbery, but was it really as bad as the media made it out to be? That facts are that the clerk at the Kwik-E-Mart gets robbed at least once per fortnight and I caused him no physical harm whatsoever so the only loss was the money. Not to mention, as a famous - and rather powerful - man, Krusty had very little trouble in prison as he knew the right people to bribe and the guards gave him special treatment, and they always reduce the sentence for celebrities and other people of power to a mere couple of months, sometimes even days** (Krusty was going to do a mere four months in Springfield Minimum Security Penitentiary, compared to the two to three years Joe Schmoe would have received for the exact same crime)**. So, in my honest opinion, there were really no victims and this would be a win-win situation.

I suppose that does sound a little insane, even to myself, but I guess I should try to explain my motives a little better: First off, it was well known not just to myself but to many other performers on the show that Krusty had - and to my knowledge, still has - a serious gambling problem. Every cent he earned, he gambled on horses, greyhounds, sports games and those ridiculous, tacky endorsements that would keep the money flowing in for his little cycle to continue. He was the only performer on the entire show who actually earned a decent wage; something he had personally ensured when the show was first created. It was no wonder that many of the performers would crack tasteless jokes about Judaism whenever Krusty's back was turned.

Second of all, had any parents actually stepped in to watch an _entire_ episode of _**The Krusty The Clown Show**_? Not just the ridiculous - though strangely addictive - _**Itchy & Scratchy**_ shorts, but the entire show, beginning to end. You could barely call it a show. Most of the time it was a series of ridiculous, outdated vaudeville acts mixed with crude, often sexist humour. And when the humour wasn't sexist, it usually involved myself and a prop that would cause a large amount of physical pain.

But I changed all of that...The show was a mess when they first handed it over to me, but I was determined to make everything right again. For myself **(after many years of being the butt of humiliating and physically painful jokes, people were now realising I had the potential to be so much more than just a silent comic foil. I'm willing to bet that many of those idiots out there didn't even realise that I could speak at all)**, for my fellow performers who - like myself - had stuck so long with the show and received so little in return, and most of all, for the precious children who were rotting their minds in front of that screen at 4pm every afternoon. Couldn't anybody look past the fact that Krusty was a celebrity in prison to see that maybe, just maybe, it was a good thing that he had been locked up?

It was hard, hard work, but I loved every minute of it. From the negotiations with the studios and contractors to have all the performers on the show paid equal, decent wages **(After all, happy workers are cooperative workers)**, to the brainstorming class I took with a culmination of parents and children to find out what they wanted from an educational/entertaining TV-show and how we could encorporate all those elements needed to make the show a success.

And what a success it was. Fanmail started to pour in just after the _debut_ of _**"Sideshow Bob's Cavalcade of Whimsy"**_, not just from the children who watched the show, but from many parents in town as well who not only enjoyed the fact that we were able to encorporate education and entertainment so well, but also the fact that we re-introduced them to classic literature and helped to expand their minds with each episode. And I couldn't help but start to feel quite smug about my ingenious plan that had finally put one Herschel Krustofski** (Krusty The Clown) **out of power. I felt as if I were on a brilliant shooting star, flying higher and higher and higher across the sky.

But of course, everything that goes up has to come down one day. I just didn't expect my star to fall so quickly or so suddenly. Two children - a little girl and a boy - turned up to my dressing room not long before I had to start a show, saying that they wanted to talk to me about Krusty. Being in a hurry, I decided it would be best to brush them off with tickets and gave them no thought until I saw the boy's face in the audience and noticed just how unhappy the expression on his face really was. So I offered for him to be a 'guest' of sorts on a new part of our show called "Choices", where we would get to the root of his unhappiness and try to work out a solution together.

The Boy - Bart Simpson, a name I will never forget - explained to me how he and his sister had done a little detective work and were now convinced that Krusty had been framed by somebody. He presented the evidence quite well too; 'Krusty' being seen using a microwave on security footage despite his pacemaker, and being seen supposedly reading a magazine despite being revealed to be almost illiterate in his court case. While I was annoyed that they had noticed two minor flaws in my plan, I managed to come up with perfectly logical answers that he seemed to accept, but he still seemed depressed about the loss of what I can only assume was a hero in his eyes **(So ridiculous of children to idolise things like clowns instead of those of more noble professions)**, so I tried to explain to Bart that I wasn't planning on trying to replace Krusty; I was just going to carry on the show for him as best I could and that we should all remember Krusty as a fun-loving Television personality, not a criminal.

Which lead me to decide to introduce the children to a school of thought known as Stoicism, the philosophy of how every person can be free, provided that one is able to separate oneself from mundane desires. I never got past the first sentence. Bart, who seemed to have been in a bit of a daze while I talked to him, suddenly jumped up from his seat and yelled

"Wait a minute! YOU did it!"

"But- Excuse me!" I spluttered. He glared at me then snatched the microphone from my hands and started to yell at the cameras and audience.

"Attention everybody! Krusty DIDN'T rob that store, SIDESHOW BOB FRAMED HIM! And I have proof!"

The next thing I felt was Krusty's oversized mallet crashing down on my right foot and I cried out in agony. I must have also uttered profanities at the child because I faintly remember hearing some shocked gasps after I cried out.

"You see? Krusty may have worn big, floppy shoes but he's got little feet like ALL good people. ONLY Sideshow Bob could have filled his shoes with his BIG, UGLY FEET!"

And in a mere matter of hours, everything I had worked so hard for was snatched from me and re-delivered to the hands of that self-absorbed clown. The only thing that he couldn't change back was the fact that all the performers had to be paid equally; all the other performers threatened to walk if they tried. But he was able to take away everything else...The debates on important topics, the bi-weekly Classic Literature Readings** (I was going to read them **_**Animal Farm **_**and **_**A Picture of Dorian Gray **_**once we had completed **_**The Man in The Iron Mask**_**. It actually makes me quite sad to know now that I'm gone, these children will most likely never voluntarily encounter classic literatute again)**...Well basically, Krusty managed to strip the show of any educational value that I had worked so hard to install. The thoughts, the dreams that myself and the other performers had taken from our minds and made real were destroyed with a few words from Krusty and a few strokes of the pen from his lawyers.

And of course, thanks to that poor, misguided child, I'm now in jail. I really hope you're happy with what youv'e done, Bart Simpson. Not only have you made an enemy in one Robert Underdunk Terwilliger, you've doomed yourself and many, many others of your generation to a childhood of ignorance and stupidity. Was it really worth it all just to get that self-absorbed, money-hungry, gambling addict back on the television to rot your minds away? Does he even remember your name or what you did for him whenever your paths cross, or do you have to remind him? He doesn't even _**care**_ about any of his fans, don't you realise that? You're all nothing but extra ratings and open wallets to him. I actually _**cared**_ about the people who watched my show...I cared enough to try and find out what was making you unhappy that day, and you threw every last piece of it back in my face.

And why? Not_ just _because I framed Krusty, but also because_** I wasn't Krusty**_, and you just wouldn't - no, _couldn't_ - accept that. You just couldn't accept that _maybe_ not everybody loved Krusty as much as _you_, that maybe, just maybe, you would have enjoyed _**"Sideshow Bob's Cavalcade of Whimsy" **_if you had just given it one, unbiased shot.

So now I'm here in Springfield Minimum Security Penitentiary, Prisoner #9K357. My cellmates are coarse buffoons who holler and scream and shout profanities at the television they are provided with and only ever pick up a novel if it is to be used in a fight. As for the food...well lets just say that I've started to miss those revolting catered meals I received while working as a Television personality. But you know what really still astounds me? The fact that I'm in prison thanks to a ten-year-old boy who was so misguided by a self-absored Television personality that he can't distinguish the many shades of grey in the world, but only the extremes of black and white.

Oh, Bart Simpson. I would pity you if I weren't aware that you are going to die very soon...


End file.
